I have tried and failed to come back to regular blogging so many times it’s getting embarrassing. But persistence (especially against one’s own flakiness) is worthy, and so — in time for the new year — I hope to make another push to write every week.
In the meantime, I would like to talk a little about what I’ve accomplished and failed to accomplish this year, especially as I have documented it so poorly up till now. (If you want a Different Mostly Image version, please check out this Twitter thread of mine). Just as Evernost is laid out partly according to the shape of the year, this post will be too — especially since this year is the closest I’ve come to fulfilling my playful ideal of “work on Creations relevant to each month during that month.”
For January, I expanded Web January For those of you (probably most of you) who have not experienced this particular Creation or were not even aware of its existence — the link will take you to a brief, depressing vignette from Jennie’s perspective —
— and then to a series of crumpled balls of paper.
Most of these just “unfold” when you click them to show bits of writing
Two of these paper balls (I’ll leave you to find which) have always led Elsewhere, to other sets of content, and now a third does too: it takes you to Jennie’s room (a very schematic version).
In February, meanwhile, I looked at a meditative set of poems connected by the not-quite-narrative of a Wanderer picking them up in a dilapidated house and created some abstract illustrations (one for each day of February)
In March I wrote on a series of chapter books for young readers, titled collectively Jennie’s Rainbow, and worked on a larger abstract artwork (no title for that yet). Here are a few details from the abstract
In April, I finished Jennie’s Rainbow — I do not yet have illustrations I find satisfying but here were a few efforts:
Then I put together an illustrated poetry manuscript (less, I fear, than the sum of its parts, but more pleasing to me than the last time I tried), and coded a simple visual novel engine and laid out some old Evernostian novel-bits in it (not online anywhere yet, but may be eventually). For August, I started work on this:
Each of these phrases will eventually lead to its own set of content but for the moment we have only a pair of short comics under “Also, love”:
and a recap of Jenny/Jennie’s room from January:
In September I made some little animations to accompany clicks in another visual novel (the stick figure walks):
After that I spent a couple months trying to cram Evernost into a single novellike volume in hopes of submitting it. (It was rejected; as one volume it is too much, also too weird). And now, in December, I am considering (one never knows) bringing out a self-pub next month with this cover:
More on that later! Altogether, it feels like a productive, joyful year, but one in which everything was left frustratingly incomplete. I am still beset by doubts about every part of this project. Should I do it at all? Should it involve art? Should it involve code? Should I look for traditional publishers or self-publish?
Regardless of the answers I come to — Happy New Year, and may 2023 be rich, exciting, lucky, and creative for all of us.
Of Elsewhere 